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Separate
- The Story of Plessy V. Ferguson, and America's Journey from Slavery to Segregation
- Narrated by: Donald Corren
- Length: 19 hrs and 39 mins
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In 1860, Charleston, South Carolina, embodied the combustible spirit of the South. No city was more fervently attached to slavery, and no city was seen by the North as a greater threat to the bonds barely holding together the Union. And so, with Abraham Lincoln's election looming, Charleston's leaders faced a climactic decision: They could submit to abolition - or they could drive South Carolina out of the Union and hope that the rest of the South would follow.
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Madness Rules The Hour ...once more
- By Anonymous User on 05-06-21
By: Paul Starobin
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John Marshall
- The Man Who Made the Supreme Court
- By: Richard Brookhiser
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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The life of John Marshall, founding father and America's premier chief justice. In 1801, a genial and brilliant Revolutionary War veteran and politician became the fourth chief justice of the US. He would hold the post for 34 years (still a record), expounding the Constitution he loved. Before he joined the Court, it was the weakling of the federal government, lacking in dignity and clout. After he died, it could never be ignored again.
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Excellent Biography
- By Jean on 12-14-18
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Seward
- Lincoln's Indispensable Man
- By: Walter Stahr
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 22 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of our most acclaimed new biographers - the first full life of the leader of Lincoln’s "team of rivals" to appear in more than 40 years. William Henry Seward was one of the most important Americans of the 19th century. Progressive governor of New York and outspoken U.S. senator, he was the odds-on favorite to win the 1860 Republican nomination for president. As secretary of state and Lincoln’s closest adviser during the Civil War, Seward not only managed foreign affairs but had a substantial role in military, political, and personnel matters.
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I Wish Doris Kearns Goodwin Had Written This
- By AR on 06-21-15
By: Walter Stahr
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Team of Rivals
- The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
- By: Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
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On May 18, 1860, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase, Edward Bates, and Abraham Lincoln waited in their hometowns for the results from the Republican National Convention in Chicago. When Lincoln emerged as the victor, his rivals were dismayed and angry. Throughout the turbulent 1850s, each had energetically sought the presidency as the conflict over slavery was leading inexorably to secession and civil war.
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Beautiful, Heartbreaking, and Informative
- By JJ on 09-10-12
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Redemption
- The Last Battle of the Civil War
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A century after Appomattox, the civil rights movement won full citizenship for black Americans in the South. It should not have been necessary: by 1870 those rights were set in the Constitution. This is the story of the terrorist campaign that took them away.
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A good accouting of the post Civil War suffering
- By KMB Consumer on 08-10-07
By: Nicholas Lemann
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James Madison
- A Life Reconsidered
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A major new biography of the fourth US president, from New York Times best-selling author Lynne Cheney. James Madison was a true genius of the early republic, the leader who did more than any other to create the nation we know today. This majestic new biography tells his story. Outwardly reserved, Madison was the intellectual driving force behind the Constitution. His visionary political philosophy was a crucial factor behind the Constitution’s ratification, and his political savvy was of major importance in getting the new government underway.
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Great man, great ideas, muddling book
- By NDFletch on 06-13-15
By: Lynne Cheney
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A Self-Made Man
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- By: Sidney Blumenthal
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
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The first of a multivolume history of Lincoln as a political genius - from his obscure beginnings to his presidency, his assassination, and the overthrow of his post-Civil War dreams of Reconstruction. This first volume traces Lincoln from his painful youth, describing himself as "a slave", to his emergence as the man we recognize as Abraham Lincoln.
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I Can't Wait for Volume II!
- By NC-N-NC on 06-14-16
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One Man Great Enough
- Abraham Lincoln's Road to Civil War
- By: John C. Waugh
- Narrated by: David Drummond
- Length: 12 hrs
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Abraham Lincoln is the central axis of this story about America's seemingly unstoppable march toward war, the shattering of its political landscape, and its grappling with the moral underpinnings of a republic of the people, by the people, and for the people.
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Good historical review
- By JS on 10-01-12
By: John C. Waugh
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Impeached
- The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy
- By: David O. Stewart
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 15 hrs and 32 mins
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In 1868 Congress impeached President Andrew Johnson of Tennessee, the man who had succeeded the murdered Lincoln, bringing the nation to the brink of a second civil war. Enraged to see the freed slaves abandoned to brutal violence at the hands of their former owners, distraught that former rebels threatened to regain control of Southern state governments, and disgusted by Johnson's brawling political style, congressional Republicans seized on a legal technicality as the basis for impeachment - whether Johnson had the legal right to fire his own secretary of war, Edwin Stanton.
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Highly recommended
- By Eric on 12-12-19
By: David O. Stewart
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The First Congress
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- By: Fergus M. Bordewich
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
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The First Congress was the most important in US history, says prizewinning author and historian Fergus Bordewich, because it established how our government would actually function. Had it failed - as many at the time feared it would - it's possible that the United States as we know it would not exist today.
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Compelling
- By Jean on 03-05-18
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What listeners say about Separate
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- JKC
- 03-15-19
Black and White in shades of grey
Northern segregationists. Southern slaveholders who took up arms for the North. Carpetbaggers both venal and altruistic. Freed slaves who themselves owned slaves. And the ultimate paradox: Homer Plessy, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that rationalized “separate but equal”, being classified as “white” in the 1920 census.
This book is more than just the story of Plessy v. Ferguson. It’s an anecdotal collage of the manifold aspects of race relations in the U.S. from slavery to the Civil War to the Supreme Court. From Frederick Douglass to Booker T. Washington. From Charles Sumner to Jim Crow.
Too often in this country, the struggle for civil rights is told in terms of the 1860s and the 1960s. The period in between, the Jim Crow period during which segregation policies reasserted white dominance, is seldom covered in detail, is poorly understood, is hooded and cloaked, as it were, in secrecy and subversion.
Luxenberg does a good job making this era accessible by telling it from the perspectives of 4 main Plessy v Ferguson protagonists; H. B. Brown, the northern segregationist judge who wrote the majority opinion, John Marshal Harlan, the southern justice whose solitary and prescient dissent predicted many of the woes that resulted from the decision, Albion Tourgee, the carpetbagger who pleaded Plessy’s case before the Supreme Court, and the “gens de couleur libres”, New Orleans’ Free People of Color, the people who brought the case and who were so cruelly betrayed by the decision. In this book, we relive Reconstruction, with all of its aspirations and contradictions and ultimate failures, through the experiences and writings of these very real people. Luxenberg has done us the overdue and important service of humanizing an adumbrated period of our past.
Luxenberg’s subject is Plessy v Ferguson, and except for a brief epilogue, he ends the book with the Supreme Court decision. There is still room for a similar treatment of the dismal history that followed, when Judge Harlan’s forebodings were fully realized.
The writing contains a few stylistic irritants but they are minor. I recommend this book as much for the subject it illuminates as for the writing style.
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- surya
- 03-12-19
Interesting approach to history with specific issu
I apologize for the length of my review in advance as I know I get verbose when I am passionate about something.
I picked up this book intending to understand how a country that, 70 years after its founding, realized that the rights they declared as universal in their Declaration of Independence also applied to its African American citizens soon deprived its new citizens of protecting those rights within 40 years after the aforementioned realization. Also, as Alexis de Tocqueville once said, “Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.” Hence, It intrigued me in understanding how this political question found its way into a judicial courthouse and how the highest court of arbitration of the land dealt with this. This book answers the question (s) but falls short in specific ways. Read below to realize how.
While I am used to non-fiction, I was afraid that I might not relate to the 19th century life and might get bored with a 20 hr book and hence do not grasp the nuggets of knowledge I was seeking amidst the heap of societal analysis. But, the book takes a unique approach to history following the key players in this debate; this keeps the content relatable
In terms of the structure, the book is well organized and can be divided into 5 parts. (Ambition, War, Ascent, Precipice, Resistance) and it has about 4 chapters per part. The 4 chapters follow more or less: John Marshall Harlan, Henry Billings Brown, Albion Tourgee, the People (The author discusses life in Louisiana mostly but also discusses life in the north to some detail). Pretty organized, Right? Personally I wish the author had anonymized the actors until the end. It was definitely interesting to see a Massachusetts bred, Michigan jurist taking the stance he did while a Kentucky born Harlan being the sole dissenter despite his history of the No-Nothing Party and of not exactly being on board with immediate emancipation. The reason I wish the author anonymized the actors is because despite my best attempts, I judged HBB and didn’t relate well to him. Had the author anonymized the names of the actor, I would have listened to his chapters with as much enthusiasm and curiosity as I had those of Harlan and Tourgee. And towards the end, had the author revealed the true identity of each justice, it would have been more thrilling.
Anyway, in terms of the organization, the parts are:
Ambition shows the pre-adult (pre-Civil War) years of the key-players and how the upbringing affected their opinions.
War discusses their Civil War years.
Ascent discusses the professional growth of Harlan and Henry Brown as they find themselves at the threshold of the Supreme Court while Albion Tourgee tours the country trying his best to buid a better republic.
Precipice gets them into their respective places and Resistance sets the ground for the lawsuit.
If you haven’t realized, the book misses the key part, actual Plessy v Ferguson trial. While the book talks about Tourgee’s preparation for the trial and sets the arguments he wrote to make, it jumps to the justice being handed down without discussing how and why the judges made the decision they did. (Author finds a reason to squeeze in the turmoil Harlan had to go through while giving out a dissent in a different case but doesn’t find it necessary to do so in case of the title of the book?) While Harlan’s and Tourgee’s evolutions on the topics are explored much in depth, HBB’s evolution in ideology is not discussed as much which also leads me to wonder what Henry Billings Brown believed in and how a Northerner might have held separatist views.
I really enjoyed history in a way that educates while engages the audience and only wish more books take such an approach. I felt like I was reading Jeffrey Archer, Horatio Alger. My greatest disappointment is that I wish the content of the trial was explored.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Terry A. Pristin
- 04-06-19
Should be required reading in law schools
No book I’ve ever read spells out as clearly how life experiences shape the views of judges. This is a riveting tale, beautifully told. I’m very grateful it was written. The audio version was fine — but the reader should know for the future that Justice Taney’s name is pronounced TAWney.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Paul
- 02-19-20
If you want biographies
Of the men who tried the case, then this is for you. I was interested in the case itself and the results. So my bad for not understanding what it was really about. Seems well researched and well-produced. Just was a lot of history of the relatively minor figures involved in the case. Interesting as far as it goes. For me, not very far. The afterword was way more interesting.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Brian
- 04-04-19
Must read
I never knew that “separate” was often the norm in the North. I knew about the South. This story is one that needs to be told. Moreover, separate but equal was generally accepted as the norm. “Separate, but Equal”. We are shocked by those attitudes now, but how many of us would have been Justice Brown and his six concurring colleagues more than 100 years ago. Quite a few I surmise!
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3 people found this helpful
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- Lmaris
- 03-29-19
A history rarely taught but should be
This is a true story which every American should read if they think change is easy
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3 people found this helpful
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- Ann M. Miller
- 02-16-24
The best intentions oft go awry
This is an account of the lives of key players in the Plessy case and how conviction and fate brought them together to deliver one of the most devastating legal blows to the promise of racial equality in the 19th century.
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- Fr. S.
- 12-07-23
An important history of racial injustice
The book laid out far more than the facts of Plessy vs Ferguson, important as they are. The author gives a feel for the Era before, during, and after the War Between the States. Especially important is the little known post war period. The growing racism of the Democrats and the feckless abandonment of ethics by the Republicans is laid out step by step. As a political and cultural conservative, I found this book brilliantly instructive. I detest racism and bigotry, and this book gave a refined point to the nation's struggle against racism. Unfortunately, it uses one of our steps backwards. but we can learn from it.
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- Anonymous From MA
- 11-15-23
Enlightening and well written
Well written coverage of the individuals involved in bringing the test case of Plessy v. Ferguson to the Supreme court. Succinctly describes the social climate responsible for the disastrous outcome and provides biographical sketches of John Marshall Harlan (the lone dissenter) and Henry Billings Brown (the writer of the majority opinion)
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- Sir Notagain
- 06-01-23
Thought provoking knowledge
My high school education on Plessey vs Fergeson omitted much of the details contained in this audio book. I found the purposeful violation of standing state laws just have the case heard by the Supreme Court Justices an interesting tactic for change. As you listen to the arguments in the case I could not help but gravitate towards todays headlines of transgendered persons and their similarities. Perhaps someday their case will be heard by the Supreme Court.
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